Iliana recovered first. The Bulgarian woman sat up, clutching her head with her hand.

“Feeling better?” Nathan asked.

“Yeah, that hurts me. I hate this,” she said with a frown.

“Yeah, the pain sucks. At least we’re rewarded for it though. Did you get a weapon skill finally?”

“No.” She sniffled, wiping snot from her nose. Her frown deepened as she washed her sleeve in the water.

Nathan didn’t have many sinus issues before the arena, and his regular Physical stat gains had essentially cured him of any. But a few of the others with mild allergies tended to have a deluge of mucus drainage after a skill gain. The healing aspect cleared out their sinus cavities, and with each subsequent gain there was thankfully less to drain. Those with more severe allergies or chronic sinus inflammation were disqualified from being selected for the arena in the first place for which he was glad. Their skill learning would’ve been horribly gross.

“Hmm,” he mused, considering her lack of weapon skill. “I expected since you helped kill a tier 2 monster they’d give you one, but I guess piercing it didn’t help for unlocking Blunt Weapons. Lilly had to bash the enemy to get hers. Blunt Weapons doesn’t really synergize with your Thrust skill, but you need a weapon skill desperately.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Come to think of it,” he said, “you might need to specifically defeat a tier 1 monster for the unlock since that’s how it's happened for everyone else. We haven’t actually seen a tier 1 while foraging, but when we do, make sure you smash it instead of stabbing, alright?”

She nodded. “Harrison said the same thing. I forget when we’re fighting though, it's so crazy.”

“Yeah, I get that. There is no time to think in the middle of it.”

“I’m so useless…” she said weakly.

He frowned, surprised. “What? No, you aren’t. You’re actually one of our best fighters, you just don’t know it yet. Anyway, what skill did you get?”

“Improved Lungs,” she replied blandly.

“Whoa, does it actually improve your lungs?” he asked excitedly, both to cheer her up and also because the skill name sounded awesome. He imagined how fast he could’ve run in his track races if he had supernatural lung power.

“I don’t know... it’s a Metal 3 Prime skill and gave me another +2 Physical. It also says I get a 30% boost to stamina. What does that mean?”

What the… “30% boost to stamina! That’s… insane. Stamina usually refers to how long you can endure. Like in a foot race, the person with more stamina will tire less and run faster and farther. And the more fit you become, the more that 30% will boost you. And that is only at level one...” He shook his head in awe the more he thought about it. “Geez, as you keep stacking Physical stats, your strength and stamina will become god-like massive!”

“Really?... huh,” she said. “That’s okay, I guess. Here, just look at my blue screen.”

Nathan wondered what was fueling her lack of enthusiasm. Depression, mental trauma, fear, low self-esteem?… it could be anything he supposed. Iliana pulled up her character sheet and he took a look over her shoulder. He was a bit impressed. 135 Physical and 118 Mental. “With your Improved Lungs, your current Physical stat, and the 35% strength boost from the Strong Body II skill, you’d likely win the Olympics if you practiced. Just pick the event.”

“No way, really? Are you joking me?” She gave him a doubtful frown.

“I’m serious. Your body even looks as fit as an Olympic athlete.” It was true, she didn’t have an ounce of body fat on her. If her compact muscle growth hadn't made her incredibly lean, she’d probably be ripping out of her too tight clothing soon. As it was, her skinny jeans forced her to waddle as she walked, which couldn’t be helpful for fighting. Nathan’s own clothes were becoming uncomfortably small as he kept gaining muscle.

“Thank you,” she said, finally perking up. He guessed that complimenting her looks apparently did more to buff her morale than any talk of game skills or abilities. “Oh my God, I have to take this bra off. I can’t breathe... everything is shrinking. I need to rip places in my trousers so I can walk too, but need to take them off first. Turn around.”

Nathan felt his cheeks warm up while he put his back to her, allowing her to adjust her wardrobe. Along with Lilly’s mini-dress, he sympathized with the ladies’ situation; the lack of proper clothing and privacy was another hardship they had to endure. He wondered if Maya would think him sexist for only feeling bad for the women. Both genders had to deal with being more familiar with their fellow players than they’d like, but Nathan couldn’t help but pity the ladies’ struggles more in this regard.

“Okay, done,” she said.

He turned around and a new blush ran up his back. Iliana was thankfully fully clothed, but for some reason she was holding her lacey black bra up in the air to show him while she held her other hand over her mouth as she giggled. He shook his head. This girl was too much. He focused instead on the water current as it flowed around the rocks near his feet as she tucked the article of clothing into the waist of her pants. She laughed even louder at his obvious discomfort. At least she’s laughing now.

“You should see your face,” she said. “Do you not have a girlfriend or something?”

Nathan’s face radiated heat. He didn’t have one, but also didn’t want to answer the loaded question.

She continued to giggle. “If you’re so freaked out by a bra, you’ll lose your mind when one of the girls gets her period. We have no pads or anything.”

A spike of alarm flooded through him. He gaped, at a complete loss for words. He’d never even thought about that. How were…? His mind was so conflicted he couldn’t even finish his thought.

Iliana laughed again, her mood dramatically improved. “Don’t worry. Maya talked with each of the women last night. She says we were taken a few days earlier or later than the men, so we each finished our last period right before they kidnapped us.”

Nathan did remember having a conversation with Maya about the abduction times being different. She hadn’t mentioned anything about periods though. Apparently, Maya was more discreet about feminine matters than Iliana.

Lilly, who’d been struggling in pain on the bank, relaxed her posture and sat up. The Kenyan woman shook her head and looked around, the yellow stone on her collar glinting in the sun.

“How’re you feeling Lilly?” Iliana asked.

“Better now. I chose a new skill.”

“Nice, what’d you get?” Nathan asked.

“Stun I. It’s an activated skill that lets me stun my target for one second when I strike them.”

“Yes!” Nathan said, restraining himself from doing a fist pump. “I just learned Snare I which lets me bind my target with vines. We have a lot more combat options now for those freaking bears!”

“Yes, I think so,” Lilly said, getting to her feet and stretching.

“Hopefully the skill effects work fully even on a tier 2 monster,” he said, trying to temper his expectations.

“Why wouldn’t it?” Lilly asked. “It doesn’t have a limit stated in the description.”

“It's just a hunch based on how I’ve seen other games do things. More powerful enemies are less affected by status effects by default. It’s a cheating tool for game designers to make challenges artificially harder. We never did that in my group’s tabletop games though. If we're lucky, Tygerion didn’t design it that way either, instead only allowing skills and affinities the monsters already have to lessen or negate effects. Most monsters should have a few innate ways to deal with specific effects, but not a counter for everything.”

She nodded. “We’ll find out one way or the other soon enough. It won’t be the last strong monster we’ll see.”

“How about we catch more lobster fish?” Iliana interjected. “Learning a new skill is making me crazy hungry.”

“I have enough NPs to upgrade my Tough Skin skill, let me do that first,” Lilly said.

“Cool, go ahead,” Nathan said. “Any scrap of power we can gain for fighting those bears we should take.”

As she activated her upgrade, he wondered if he should’ve advised her to save her upgrade for an emergency healing instead. He became uncertain for a moment before dismissing the idea. He’d just resolved to start taking things more seriously; becoming more decisive was the first step. He was more and more convinced that a passive strategy was not the way to win. If one of them had been mauled by that bear by being a hair too slow, they likely all three would’ve died since it took their combined effort to kill it. They couldn’t afford to stay weak and hope to heal up afterward. They needed to be strong and fast enough to avoid being hurt in the first place.

Would David or Maria still be alive if they learned just one more combat skill? Given how easy the beavers were for them now as opposed to yesterday, he thought the answer was probably yes. And neither of the dead players had a chance to use an upgrade to save themselves even if they held one in reserve. Avoiding the fatal blow entirely would’ve been better.

After Lilly had recovered, they continued their hunt for the crawfish, moving further upstream. Nathan asked the African woman about her skills to get the updated version of her character sheet. From her brief explanations, Nathan gathered she was already a top athlete before arriving in the arena with a base Physical stat of 131. Her stat gains now placed her off the charts at 141 Physical and 118 Mental. Nathan studied her broad shoulders and tall muscular body. She was built like a tank. He supposed that was appropriate since she was an Earth Prime. They specialized in defense and protection.

Lilly’s skills were Language I, General Fitness II, Tough Skin II, Defense Up I, Water Shield I, Blunt Weapons I, and Stun I. She explained Tough Skin was an Earth skill that permanently boosted physical damage resistance by 15% and the level two version improved it to 35%. Defense Up worked similarly to his own Attack Up buff, but it instead reduced the damage of the next physical attack against her by 20%. She had a yellow shield symbol on her collar and wristband indicating that her defensive buff was active.

He honestly liked her skill better than his own since as long as she didn’t take damage, it would stay active. Attack Up had the annoying habit of triggering on weak beavers, which was overkill. He had to refresh it after each battle wasting precious EPs. Given the attacks were every thirty minutes now, he was only regaining 17.5 EPs between battles. The 16 EP cost for Attack Up ate through most of that.

He also reflected on how skill descriptions frequently used the terms ‘physical damage’ and ‘physical attacks.’ This further confirmed normal blows were a different classification than ‘elemental attacks.’ Punching, kicking, stabbing with a spear all inflicted physical damage. He couldn’t wait until they gained the fabled ‘elemental attacks,’ and seeing how they differed.

Nathan appreciated Lilly’s skill list, but he wondered why she hadn’t upgraded her newly learned Stun skill instead. “Why’d you upgrade Tough Skin when you also had enough NPs to upgrade Stun? Stunning an enemy is really powerful.”

“Because I want to be able to take a hit and keep standing,” Lilly said. “The little grey man… the guth... hurt my leg and then I was useless. I want to accept blows and shrug them off. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I don’t want anyone else to die.” She grunted, striking her spear against the water with a splash. She then trudged ahead through the creek, keeping her back to her teammates.

Iliana followed the Kenyan woman and placed a hand on her shoulder. Lilly shrugged her off and Iliana backed away looking at Nathan for help. He shrugged, deciding the larger woman needed a moment alone. While the two of them hunted more food, Lilly wordlessly rejoined them a few minutes later, now composed.

Soon after, they were attacked by a group of six beavers, right on schedule. Nathan made sure they were in formation before the battle even arrived. The large group was easily eliminated due to the creature’s mindless tactics, bringing Nathan’s NP count up to 17. The beavers were honestly a nice and relaxing fight compared to the tier 2 bear earlier. It was crazy to think how much better at fighting the players had become from the day before.

He wanted to test his new Snare skill, but thought it best to build up his EP pool a bit more before using a 16 EP skill. He did use 8 EPs though, smiling as he studied his green glowing bracelet. He’d used Analyze Enemy, finally adding the rodents to his interface.

[Horned Beaver (Tier 0) added to Enemy Compendium.]

As he read the creature’s name, he cursed loudly, startling Lilly and causing Iliana to giggle. He ignored their reactions. So the game even called them beavers. He sighed as he reviewed the beaver’s stats in his compendium.

[Horned Beaver (Tier 0).]

[Physical: 50.]

[Mental: 30.]

[Elemental Affinities: Water 3 (Prime), Wood 2, Fire 0, Metal 0, Earth -8.]

[Rewards: 1 NP.]

[Possible Loot: sharp horn - rare; EP orb - epic.]

He’d never seen any items appear, so the drop rate must be fairly low. The two possible loot drops were listed as rare and epic respectively so that made sense. The stats also confirmed the creatures were laughably weak at 50 Physical. If he hadn’t already seen them kill players right in front of him, he’d have mocked their pitiful threat level.

The sharp horn being listed as loot was interesting considering how useful it would be if one dropped. Thinking about the horns as a drop sent the wheels in his mind spinning, like used to happen when he was role playing in a tabletop game. The arena had been so traumatic over the last day, he hadn’t really applied himself to finding ways to exploit the game system.

Now he had an idea. What would happen if he tried to remove the horns from a live beaver before it pixelated? That would eliminate the randomness of the horn dropping, guaranteeing two horns with each kill. Of course, the horns could still pixelate anyway, but it was worth a shot given the potential payout. The fact the monsters left some blood behind meant they could potentially leave other body parts too. The theory made his stomach twist. Performing a gory mutilation on a living creature was horrifying to contemplate, and he wouldn’t have been capable of considering it the day before. He’d changed though, between his Mental improvements and his experiences thus far. He resolved to give it a try next opportunity. He couldn’t screw around anymore when they were facing tier 2 monsters already.

The three players continued collecting crawfish, to the point his shirt bag was beginning to become heavy. He was keeping meticulous time now, so when he was at 30 EPs they heard the screeches right on schedule. It was a group of seven beavers; exactly what he hoped for. He needed an easy monster to test his new crowd control skill.

The first beaver charged at him, the same tactic as every beaver ever.

“Snare!” he roared, pointing his free hand at the beaver while still a few yards away. Nothing happened, which he kind of expected. He slammed his spear down on its head as it neared, ending its existence.

The second beaver began its charge so he shifted to ‘test two,’ this time using the skill through his weapon. He waited until it closed the distance and leapt. “Snare!” he shouted as he thrust his spear. This time, energy in his core flared in response to his intent to attack, flooding his arms and entering the wooden shaft of his spear. The energy contained a living Wood sensation, distinct from the burning Fire energy of his attack buff. His weapon glowed green, suffused with his body’s Wood energy. As his spear pierced the beaver, a mild flash of green winked from the point of impact.

The beaver’s body halted as it skewered on his spear. Growing green vines sprouted from its wound, rapidly spreading across the creature’s body and wrapping it tight. The vines finished tightening their prison, and held the beaver in place as it struggled.

Lilly killed the third beaver as he waited for the vines’ duration to expire on his test subject. The snare lasted the full ten seconds and then the vines pixelated as they released the beaver. The beaver died from its wounds a moment later anyway.

“This is awesome!” he shouted.

“Good work,” Lilly said. “But celebrate after we finish the rest.”

The beavers were subsequently exterminated, bringing Nathan’s NP total up to 19.5. He was pleased with his crowd control skill. It was overkill on a beaver, except for its potential in his horn experiment later. But it would be much more useful on a tier 1 or higher opponent.

His excitement aside, the skill wasn’t perfect. The fact he had to make contact with his weapon before it could imprison his enemy was a major disadvantage. It would be better if he could cast it like a spell, safely from a distance like a wizard. So far, none of the skills seemed to work that way, all requiring touch either by a player’s body part or channeled through a held weapon. Was there a way around it? He reached down and picked up a small rock, considering.

“Weird,” Iliana said, also picking up a small object out of the water.

“What’s that?” Nathan asked. He pocketed his rock.

“A glass ball.” She held it up. It glowed purple in the sunlight.

“Glass ball?” Nathan asked. His mind returned to the epic EP orb mentioned as possible loot. Could one have dropped already? “Can I see?”

“Sure.” She tossed the orb through the air to him. Nathan’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as he frantically dropped his spear to catch it. He needn’t have panicked, he found his enhanced Physical stat made the catch trivial.

Once in hand, he examined the orb closely. It was a large glass sphere, the size of a shooter marble. It glowed dimly with a translucent purple hue. How did it work though? He tried touching it to his wristband and collar but nothing happened. He tried to mentally activate it a few different ways, but with similar lack of results.

He handed it back to Iliana but she waved him off. “My trouser pockets are fake," she said. "You hold on to it.”

He glanced at Lilly, but her mini-dress was even worse for carrying items. “Sure,” he said, pocketing it so they could study it more later. “We should figure out a system for distributing loot once we get back to camp. Other stuff might drop too.” Everyone agreed and they continued working.

“That’s probably enough crawfish,” Nathan said after they collected a few more. The shirt bag held a couple hundred of the little lobsters. It seemed like a lot, but wouldn’t stretch far when rationed out to all the ravenous players stacking Physical stats. “Ready to head back?”

“Yes, please!” Iliana said in a whining voice. “Let’s cook them. I’m so hungry.”

Lilly nodded as well.

Nathan looked around. They were the furthest from camp going upstream they’d ever been.

Earlier, his survival skill alerted him to two different edible herbs; a mint-like plant and another leafy herb plant with no Earth-like equivalent. He put generous samples of each in his shirt bag. Otherwise, his survival skill was a disappointment. To get more out of his skill, he’d need to travel further, go bushwhacking through the undergrowth, or simply become more observant as he tried to trigger the skill. He suspected an increased Mental stat might help with his observational ability. The Expansive Mind skill he passed up might’ve helped eek more out of his knowledge skills too, but he didn’t regret picking Snare instead.

As Nathan scanned their surroundings, his eyes widened as he spotted the top of a stone structure through the wall of vegetation to their right. What was that?

“Hey, I see something over there. Looks like a building, maybe,” he told the others.

“Really? Someone lives here?” Iliana asked.

“I doubt it. It looks more like a ruin or something. It could even be the dungeon we’re supposed to find and clear for phase one. We obviously aren’t ready for that yet, but we should at least scout it out in case it's important.”

Nathan stepped out of the water onto the steep muddy bank. There was a large embedded rock he used as a stepping stone as he grabbed onto a bush to pull himself up. A thorny vine scratched his chest as he entered the forest undergrowth, making him once again wish for a proper bag so he could actually wear his shirt.

Using his spear, he tried to clear a path through the thick plants but it was slow going. A machete would be handy here. Lilly and Iliana came after him, not offering any complaint or agreement with his decision to go jungle diving. He tried his best not to slap any branches back into Lilly’s face but it happened a couple times anyway.

The thick vegetation suddenly opened up into a small circular clearing. Nathan marveled up at a tall stone obelisk in the center. It was about three stories tall and obviously what caught his eye from the creek. His eyes were then drawn to the forms standing at its base. They were yipping at the intrusion.

Four grey goblins, or more specifically guthark tribesmen, leapt to their feet with spears from where they’d been sitting around a small cooking fire. Animal skins on the ground served as dirty beds and the area stunk as if they’d been living in their own filth.

The spearmen quickly arrayed themselves in a line facing the players. A fifth larger goblin was already standing, holding a one handed scimitar sword and a wooden shield. The sword wielder also wore a distinctive tribal bone headdress in addition to the filthy animal pelt like the others. It seemed content to wait at the base of the obelisk while its four minions dealt with the intruders.

Nathan’s grip tightened on his spear. Thirty minutes hadn’t passed since the last roaming monster attack so he hadn’t expected to see monsters yet. It meant the campsite and monsters were permanent entities. What had they stumbled on?

Lilly pushed through the vegetation next to him taking up a defensive position on his right, her teeth clenched in outrage. Iliana reluctantly took up a spot on his left.

“I’ll use my new Snare skill to try and disable one,” Nathan said softly. He hoped Snare worked like he thought it would. A quick glance at his wristband told him he only had 20 EPs, with unfortunately no active attack buff. The unexpected battle hadn’t given him time to regenerate his energy fully. He’d have only one Snare for the whole fight. “That will leave one enemy for each of us.”

“I can’t do this,” Iliana said, her voice trembling. “There are too many.”

“You can do this,” Nathan reassured. They didn’t have a choice. Retreating through the thick tangle of forest would only result in the smaller monsters skewering them through their backs. “I’ll take the lead, just support me as best you can. Use your Thrust skill when you get the chance. Remember, you’re as strong and fit as two of them combined.”

The two rightmost spearmen each squared off with Lilly and Nathan. The two leftmost of the four approached Iliana to double team her, probably sensing her acute nervousness. Nathan pulled out the small rock he pocketed earlier with his free hand. He passed his spear to his left hand and the rock to his right. He hoped this worked.

“Snare!” he shouted, slinging the rock towards the rightmost of Iliana’s two goblins with a sidearm throw. His Wood energy moved as he made the motion, imbuing the rock with a green glow as it whipped forward. The glowing green orb of rock collided with the goblin’s stomach, plant vines immediately sprouting outward in a green flash. The vines spread across its vest, wrapping around both its arms. The vines squeezed tight and the goblin lost its hold on its spear, dropping it to the ground. It let out a yip of surprise at its partial imprisonment.

Nathan’s own goblin thrusted at him while he readied his spear again. He jumped back, dodging the blow but losing a bit of ground. Lilly ran forward on his right, slamming her spear down on the goblin facing her. It raised its spear horizontally overhead with both hands, blocking the downward strike.

Nathan was worried about Iliana fighting by herself. He glanced over as she dodged a probing spear thrust. She was strong and athletically built from her skill and stat gains, but she didn’t have the Pole Weapons skill. It left a critical deficiency in her combat ability. He needed to tip the odds more in their favor while one of them was snared.

He sidestepped another thrust from his tribesman and grabbed its spear with his free hand. He yanked hard and the goblin was pulled off-balanced. Nathan’s awkward grip on his own spear prevented a killing strike, so he instead kicked the monster hard at its knee. His kick wasn’t nearly as strong as Asahi had demonstrated the day before, but Nathan’s enhanced Physical stat was enough. The guth pitched forward and fell on its face next to him.

The Bulgarian woman desperately fended off her opponent, but she soon took a shallow stab wound to her shoulder. The injury elicited a cry of pain. Her goblin was shifting for another thrust when Nathan knocked its spear tip to the ground with his own. He pivoted his spear for the follow up, stabbing the surprised guth in its furry chest armor, penetrating a couple inches into flesh.

Iliana yelled something angrily in Bulgarian and a silvery glow surrounded her spear. Her spear rocketed forward into the wounded monster, landing a few inches above Nathan’s own attack. Unlike his strike that barely penetrated, Iliana sliced straight through the armor like a knife through hot butter. Her spear exited the back of the goblin by six inches, blood and viscera exploding outward. Nathan gaped at the violent outcome. Her strength and the Thrust skill’s ability to ignore defenses were not to be underestimated.

The vines holding the snared goblin began to pixelate as their ten second duration expired. As the goblin reached down to pick up its dropped spear, Nathan ran forward and swung his spear hard at an angle. He clipped it on the side of its chin, spinning the creature around like a top. As it fell, Nathan stepped forward and made a powerful thrust, piercing it through the side of its neck. It ceased its struggles, pixelating as he pulled his spear out.

He glanced back and watched Lilly viciously stab her own downed foe. That’s three dead. The goblin Nathan had kicked to the ground earlier had regained its weapon and was pointing it warily towards the three of them. All three of the players turned around to face it. It let out a loud yip and an answering roar sounded from behind them.

The sword and shield wielding goblin! He swiveled back to see the guthark chief with the tribal headwear approaching; finally deciding it was time to become personally involved. It was muscular and at least two feet taller than its minions, not even counting for its fancy hat.

“Lilly, take the last regular spear goblin. Iliana, help me with this big one,” Nathan said, hoping his team would listen to him. Since Iliana was injured and the least confident fighter, he didn’t want her on her own.

The chief guth, or whatever it was, took Nathan’s speech as a battle challenge and let out its own. It’s yipping roar was deeper and less ear piercing than its spear wielding brothers. A red glow surrounded its hands and then its sword caught on fire. That wasn’t a battle challenge. It was a skill activation! The red flames flickered unnaturally as they surrounded the curved slender blade.

Nathan didn’t want to find out what would happen if he was hit with it. Could it cause elemental Fire damage? He only had 2 Fire affinity so his base Fire resistance was 10%. Better than nothing but best not to get touched at all.

Nathan found he was breathing hard, gasping for air as he prepared himself for the next round of fighting. His heart rate was out of control. Combat here tended to be violently brief, yet it seemed to suck his stamina dry as if he’d run a thirty minute race.

Iliana groaned in pain to his left and he assumed it was due to the blood seeping through her shirt. Despite that, she wasn’t breathing hard like him. Nathan was envious of her Improved Lungs and boosted stamina. He quickly calculated her Fire resistance too. The figure caused him to grimace. She was a Metal Prime, and had a natural -30% penalty to her destructive opposite of Fire. Add on the -5% penalty for having -1 Fire affinity and she was by far their most susceptible player to Fire elemental damage.

It was too late to change assignments. He could already hear Lilly initiate her battle with the regular spear wielder behind as the chief goblin advanced on them.

Nathan, who was lined up on the chief’s shield side, lunged forward, his weapon skill knowledge assisting him with the trajectory of his strike. The monster moved its shield and deflected the attack off target. It then pivoted and slashed down with its flaming sword, slicing his wooden spear cleanly in two. Not good. The chief didn’t slow, rushing towards him faster than a regular guth could move.

Iliana, who was on the chief’s sword side, stabbed at its unprotected flank. A silvery glow indicated she had activated her Thrust skill again, the tip of her spear shining with a silvery blade. The chief suddenly became surrounded by both a red and yellow glow of its own, indicating some kind of hybrid element skill use. It rotated faster than Nathan’s eye could follow. It unbelievably caught her strike dead center on its shield.

Her spear rocketed into the wood shield with a crack. The top half of the shield shattered, the splintered pieces flying outward. Without hesitation, the monster swept its sword at Iliana and she jumped back with a startled cry, narrowly dodging the attack. Flames leapt towards her from the blade, following her as she moved back. She dove to the ground and the flames sputtered out before they reached her.

So the flaming sword had tricks it seemed. Their spears’ longer range was their best advantage against the dangerous sword, as long as they could keep their distance. But the chief goblin was stupidly fast and when it was rushing forward it was easier said than done.

Nathan took two steps and picked up a fallen spear from one of the deceased monsters. He glanced over, pleased to see Lilly hammering blows down on the last regular spear enemy, making good use of her Blunt Weapons skill. The shorter guth was on the defensive trying to block the blunt force repeatedly raining down on it from above. Lilly never let up.

Nathan turned back to the main opponent and moved forward to cover Iliana. The chief barreled straight towards her, not interested in letting her regain her feet. It blocked a weak thrust from her using its shield’s remaining bottom half. Capitalizing on the momentum from its charge, the chief rapidly spun around in a fiery full circle and slashed at her head. The unusual technique flung flames outward for several yards in a full ring around the creature.

Nathan had to throw himself back to escape the flames. Iliana instead ducked again under the flames, burying her face in the ground. It looked like she’d dodged with plenty of room to spare, but it wasn’t enough, her weakness to Fire evident. The launched flames ignited her hair in a sudden blaze. She cried out in surprise and began panicking.

Nathan picked himself up and rushed to her rescue, interrupting the chief’s follow up attack by stabbing high above its broken shield at its shoulder. It swung its sword to parry and Nathan twisted his spear enough to keep his weapon from being sliced in half again. The goblin chief bashed its partial shield forward instead, and Nathan ducked under while still moving forward. He rammed his shoulder into its gut.

The larger monster was bowled over. Nathan barely maintained his balance as his momentum took him past his fallen enemy. He could hear Iliana screaming horrifically and he prayed it was more from fright than her actually being hurt.

He turned around and slammed his spear downward on the fallen enemy. The guthark chief lifted its sword and caught Nathan’s blow, the spear shaft becoming embedded halfway on the flaming scimitar. The wooden spear caught on fire unnaturally fast and the flames spread rapidly up its length towards Nathan’s hands. He let go of the shaft and turned to find another weapon. The chief acrobatically sprang to its feet from the ground.

Lilly was suddenly there, the tall African woman stabbing up into the chief’s armpit as it landed. A yellow flash made Nathan blink. She used her Stun skill. Nathan’s vision cleared in time to witness Lilly thrusting at the dazed monster again, now at its head.

The spear slid into its eye with a gory splatter. The chief fell backward, sword arm going limp. The flames died out on the blade as whatever powered them disconnected. Its chest began to illuminate, the glow spreading out to each limb. The chief’s body then turned to pixels, disappearing into nothing. The elaborate headdress and the sword clunked to the ground, burning spear still embedded in the blade.

Another shriek made him turn around. Iliana clutched the top of her head as she rolled on the ground in agony. She’d already smothered the fire, but the burn damage had already been done.